Gary James' Interview With Rock Photographer
Lisa Law



Lisa Law photographed a lot of the big Rock acts of the 1960s. We're talking Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Velvet Underground and Santana to name just a few. And she was present at some of the biggest festivals as well. The Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. We spoke with Lisa Law about the photos she took and what she's doing today.

Q - Lisa, why are you living in Mexico? Shouldn't you be living in one of the entertainment capitols of the U.S. like Los Angeles or New York?

A - Well, I live in New Mexico. So, I go down there, to Mexico, and work with the museum. It's my second home.

Q - Before you started photographing musicians you were working with The Kingston Trio's manager, Frank Werber. What were you doing for him?

A - I was his personal assistant.

Q - You were doing that before you were photographing musicians?

A - More or less. I was photographing musicians just as I started to work for him. I was already photographing them. But, when I went to work with him I was his personal assistant. I took care of his house,clothes, food, shopping, boat, motorcycle, and his car, everything. I took care of everything that he had. He also had the Trident in Sausalito. So, I was photographing people who were coming to the Trident and playing at the Trident. I actually brought Brazil '65 there. He said he wasn't interested in Brazilian music. He was only interested in Jazz. I said, "Well, you know these guys are really great. I just heard 'em over in Berkeley. Why don't you try them out for a weekend and see if they do well?" So, he brought them over for the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday and they were a great hit and that was actually what made Brazil '65 happen. When I brought them over their career just went crazy because they were at the Trident. So then I kept shooting musicians for him like The Mystery Trend, The We Five and The Kingston Trio. I also got to go places. I got backstage passes from his company, Trident Productions. I went to see The Beatles. That's when I photographed them.

Q - I actually saw Brazil '66 when the opened for Herb Alpert And The Tijuana Brass. The Trident was very popular musically. A lot of people played there. Bill Evans played. What kind of place was that?

A - It was a restaurant on the waterfront in Sausalito. If you look it up, it's still the same. They kept it the same. They play music during the weekend. People come to eat dinner or lunch and sit there and look at the Bay, the San Francisco Bay, and listen to music. So, in those days 'cause it was the '60s, that was a popular place to go. So when I invited Brazil '65, that is when they became popular and then they went on to become Brazil '66 and so forth. He was the manager of The Kingston Trio, The We Five, Mystery Trend and Sons Of Champlin. He later was the manager of Janis Joplin. So, he had that business. I worked for him. I was his personal manager. That's when I met Tom Law backstage at a Peter, Paul and Mary concert in Berkeley. Tom Law was the road manager for Peter, Paul and Mary, okay? So, I photographed that event, that concert. Later, he and I started dating and we started living together in a castle in L.A. I was shooting everything I could shoot in a lot of the recording studios. In 1966, Bob Dylan came to the castle to rent a room and I photographed him there. We went to the Otis Redding concert at the Whiskey A Go Go together and that's when I photographed Otis Redding for Atlantic Records. I just walked up to the stage and started photographing them.

Q - How did you get that job as personal assistant to Frank Werber?

A - Well, I was hanging out at the Trident and I was doing odd jobs for him like getting his musicians and bringing them over to play. That's when I brought Bill Evans over to play at the Trident. He was staying at a house owned by the Trident. My job was to go get him and have him come over and play. I was hanging out when Frank Werber was running the Trident. That's before he remodeled it with beautiful wood and flowers and girls in lace dresses. The Trident is very famous for being the first of any of those restaurants or clubs to have women dress like that. It was like early. Then Haight-Ashbury came along in 1967, but this was '65. So, he knew me very well. I said, "I'm going to go to New York and drive a taxi." He said, "Why would you drive a taxi?" I said, "Well, I've got to make some money 'cause I'm not making money here." I'm cleaning houses, doing odd jobs for people because I was only 22. So he said, "Look, wait a minute. I think I have a job for you." So, the next day he called me and said, "I want you to be my personal assistant. I want you to take care of everything that belongs to me, my car, my boat, my motorcycle, my Cadillac convertible, my house, my shopping, my food, and preparing the food." So, he taught me gourmet cooking and I became his personal assistant. So, anything he needed, I took care of. I learned a lot by being his personal assistant. I learned gourmet cooking, learned how to ride a motorcycle, learned how to take care of a yacht. I hired crews to do sanding and varnishing. I was the person who was in charge of everything he owned.

Q - You photographed Janis Joplin. What would your approach to her have been? Did you say, "Hi. I'm Lisa Law. I'm a photographer. I'd like to take your picture," and she would say what?

A - After the Castle, I went to Mexico to live. I shot photos of the people in Yelapa and I got sick. I was supposed to build a house and live there with my husband. I got hepatitis. So, we went on to the mountains of Oaxaca where the Mushroom people are and we eventually ended up back in Los Angeles. Then my stepfather said to me, "You ought to go to San Francisco because in Haight-Ashbury right now there's a lot going on. It's very colorful." So, we went up there and stayed with my stepfather and started hanging out in the Haight-Ashbury. At that time Victor Moscoso was about to do a poster for The Matrix in San Francisco of Janis Joplin and Big Brother And The Holding Company. He knew I was a photographer and he said, "Will you shoot them for me in Lagunitas?" I was living in Forest Knolls and would go over every day to San Francisco, to Haight-Ashbury. Lagunitas was right next to Forest Knolls. I met Victor Moscoso and I took the famous picture of Janis and Big Brother. She's lying down and there's a flag behind them, which then became the poster for The Matrix. Then I said to Janis, "Janis, why don't I do some more pictures, promo pictures for you guys?" She said, "Well, let's go over to Woodacre to my friend's ranch and let's do some photography there." So, I said, "Okay." We met over there and I took a bunch of pictures. Some of them were used in shows. That was the only other time I shot her except in Haight-Ashbury when I'd see her doing a concert or on the street. I'd photographed her every time. But then when she came to New Mexico in 1970 to Talas to do a cigar commercial with Albert Grossman, her manager, she came up to my house in Truchas and that's when I took the famous shot of her leaning against the adobe wall. So, we were already friends. I'd already photographed her for a poster and promotion and we were friends and she came over to visit me. And that year she died.

Q - How did you find her to be? Was she friendly? Was she co-operative?

A - She was always friendly with me. We had a good time together. Yeah, she was just another one of us. I was a photographer. She was a singer. I was shooting a lot of musicians at that time, so we got along great.

Q - When you were taking all those photos, where would they end up? In a newspaper? A magazine?

A - A lot of them were found in the The Oracle, the magazine that was in Haight-Ashbury.

Q - Did you ever encounter Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix in your travels?

A - Jimi Hendrix came into our teepee. My husband and I put up a trip tent at Monterey Pop. If you watch the movie (Monterey Pop) at the very beginning of the movie you'll see a teepee going up and you'll see me smiling full screen and him putting up the teepee. So, we would go 'round to these concerts and put up the teepee and that became the trip tent. So, when Jimi Hendrix was playing at the Monterey Pop concert he came into the trip tent with a boom box on his shoulder and he was playing music. We had people in there who were tripping on acid, trying to be calm. He came in playing and I said, "Would you mind turning that down because it's kind of interrupting these people's trip?" He said, "No problem, no problem," but that's the only time I had connection with Jimi Hendrix.

Q - And Jim Morrison?

A - I never met Jim Morrison. I did meet the guy who played him in the movie (Val Kilmer), but I never met Jim Morrison.

Q - You mentioned you were at the Monterey Pop Festival. Did you meet and/or photograph Brian Jones?

A - Well, Brian Jones was backstage. I think I might have a picture of him backstage. What I was doing there was I was doing the trip tent. I happened to have a camera. I still didn't consider myself a professional photographer. I was a documentarian. I was documenting every single thing that I did. So, I became one of the seven photographers of Monterey Pop. We just had a show called Who Shot Monterey Pop? in 2017 and I was one of the photographers invited to that. We had seminars, talks. We ate together. Partied together, We're in the museum. Did a show, Who Shot Monterey Pop?. We were out on the grounds and we shot it again. It was really nice to have a reunion of all seven of the photographers. See, every time I shot something I kept my pictures. I kept my proof sheets. Most of the events I shot have books about them and the people come to me. I've done maybe twenty-five book covers and pictures inside of the books. I did a Super 8 movie of Woodstock that's been used about twenty times for various documentaries. My pictures from Woodstock have been used. I helped feed 200,000 people at Woodstock with Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm. So, I photographed that, although I was not one of their photographers, but we just had a giant 50th Anniversary at the museum in Bethel Woods and I was one of three photographers invited to speak and show my work.

Q - How did you hear about Woodstock? Did you sense that this was going to be a memorable event?

A - Stan Goldstein was one of the producers and Michael Lang said, "We need a crew of people to take care of everybody, to do security, to do food, trip tents. Do you know anybody who could do that, like a group?" Stan Goldstein said, "Oh, yeah. Wavy Gravy." At that time his name was Hugh Romney. Stan Goldstein asked Hugh Romney in New York, "Can you help us with this concert?" Hugh Romney said, "You gotta be kidding!" and that was the end of that conversation. Then we had the Summer Solstice Celebration in New Mexico in 1969. So, Stan Goldstein came out and said, "We really need you and all your Hog Farmers," which was a commune at that time. They had taken care of a hog farm in California and they called themselves the Hog Farmers. So he said, "We really need you and all your people to come help us 'cause you know how to work together. You know how to take care of people on acid. You know how to do it because you have lived it." So, Hugh Romney said, aka Wavy Gravy, "Okay, we'll do it. When do you want us to come?" He said, "Like the beginning of August." So he sent a jumbo jet, an American Airlines jumbo jet, to get us. And we all drove in trucks to the Albuquerque Airport. We got on the jet with our teepees and all our stuff and flew to New York. Now, already we had sent a crew of three or four different buses loaded with pots and pans and cookery, utensils. They had set up a small kitchen on the grounds of the festival. When we arrived they were already feeding people who were coming early. So, I helped design the kitchen and five food booths which had ten lines. I helped design that. Then we were talking about, "What are we going to do to help out this concert?" They were going to go down to the second hand store for pots and pans. I said, "If you look around you'll see there's a lot of people here already. I have a feeling this concert is going to be huge. So why don't we just get money from these guys and go buy a bunch of food and pots and pans so we could cook for them?" They said, "Okay." So, I went into John Morris' trailer and I said, "Can you please give me $3,000?" He said, "Okay." I said, "If you want us to feed the people you got to give us some money." So he gave me a truck and $3,000. Peter White Rabbit and I drove in to New York. I was seven months pregnant and had a two year old. So, I left the two year old with her dad, Tom Law, and I drove to New York. In one day we spent the $3,000 at Greenblatts, buying 1,200 pounds of bulgar wheat, 1,200 pounds of rolled oats, currents, apricots, almonds, honey, soy sauce, and pots and pans. The next day I said, "We've got to get some more money." So, I went to the office in New York and I said, "Give me $3,000 more." They called John and he said, "Give her whatever she wants." I had $3,000 more and bought the pots, the pans, the cutters, the knives, the cups, 130,000 paper plates, 130,000 Dixie cups, forks and spoons and mixing bowls and spatulas, everything for creating the kitchen. Then Peter White Rabbit and I drove back. Well, he fell asleep, he was so tired. I was picking up people along the way that were hitch-hiking. The whole back of the truck was filled with items and people because everybody and their brother had heard about this. I found out later they had been advertising in all the magazines across the United States, all the good magazines. That's why so many people came. It's not that they just announced it one day. They were advertising like crazy and that's why so many people came to Woodstock from all over. So, once we got there we unloaded and a lot of people who were now there started helping, offering to cook, offering to help build. When we started cooking, when we got it going, those kids that were camped out around our site became chefs. But I took the camera I had and the Super 8 film and I went out and started filming everything. I filmed us buying stuff and bringing it back, preparing the food. I went out where the mud was and people. I got into a helicopter and shot aerial views. So, I was shooting like crazy and those videos are in something like twenty-five different documentaries on Woodstock. They came to me and licensed that and the pictures as well. I also donated over thirty-five pictures to the museum, which they have in their permanent collection. That's why they just invited me back to their 50th Anniversary, because I've been very involved in getting them footage for their museum and pictures. . Some of my pictures in the museum are nine feet tall. My pictures are used a lot, which I appreciate because they interviewed me and my interviews are used a lot. I went and got them to interview the Hog Farmers and they made a movie on the Hog Farmers as well. So, I'm a big part of that museum and because of that I've helped put together different stories in Santa Fe for the Museo Cultural museum there. I did a show there called Flashing On The Sixties, a Trip Back to the Garden. That show was on for seven months. It was a big hit. When the history museum decided to do an exhibition of the counter culture, they came over and curated 147 of my items of my show and moved them over to their show. They enlarged a lot of them. So, I'm a big part of that exhibit. That went on for ten months. When I came down to Mexico I put on a show of what I photographed in Yelapa 'cause I had been coming back and forth to Yelapa for over fifty years. I found a building in town, in Yelapa, and finally talked some people into getting involved in the museum of the History Of Art And Culture of Yelapa. So, we actually built it last year, October 2018 to March 2019 and had the grand opening on my birthday, 2019. I worked eight hours a day, seven days a week, curating and building the museum with the help of two people, one who helped get me the crew and bought the crew what they needed to build, and the person who donated the money. I was the curator and historian and I donated over $200,000 worth of framed photographs for the museum. There's nothing like this museum in Mexico. It's in the middle of a jungle if you can imagine, in this village that has lots of tourism because it's a beautiful bay with no cars. They do have ATVs, but you can't get there by car. Lots of people come for vacation because there's a big beach, two waterfalls, horseback riding, twenty-three restaurants, and hotels. There hasn't always been that many hotels, but I helped build some of the hotels. So, I am a builder and an architect, author, photographer, historian and a film maker, mother of four and grandmother of five. (laughs)

Q - - You were backstage with The Beatles. Where was that?

A - That was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1965. I had a backstage pass because I worked for Trident Productions. I happened to go in front where they had just a few police guarding the stage. I got to go right up close, go backstage, back and forth. Joan Baez was there, sitting on a speaker box. You couldn't hear a thing, there was so much screaming. It was unbelievable. It was a fantastic show. So, I documented that.

Q - Did you talk to The Beatles?

A - You couldn't have the time to talk to them because they were being chased by all these kids. So, when they got off the stage they'd run to their trailer. (laughs) There was no time to talk to The Beatles. Then they had to run to their car.

Q - You've had quite a life, Lisa!

A - I'm very proud that I can share my photographs. I've taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. The best thing for me, the greatest thing for me is to be able to share my images with other people through doing it with museums and exhibitions and publications. That's what makes me happy.

Official Website: www.FlashingOnTheSixties.com

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